Painted Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

Have you priced a kitchen renovation lately? It's very expensive and extremely disruptive to your day to day life. With the economy and housing market like it is, many clients are staying in their homes longer. With that comes the desire to modify and make a space more enjoyable until the market turns around.
That being said, the easiest way to update your kitchen is to paint your kitchen cabinets. It's not the same as painting your walls, but with proper preparation and products, painted cabinets will hold up as well as stained cabinets.
My process takes about 3 weeks, but only 3 or 4 days are onsite. I take your doors and drawer faces with me, to my studio. There, I can sand, wipe down, prime, paint, glaze and polyurethane the fronts and backs and allow adequate dry/cure time between layers. During this time we also work on your kitchen onsite. You can still use your kitchen during this time, although many wives tell their husbands they must go out for dinner! I'll back you up on that if needed. :) Once complete, we return with your doors and drawers and reinstall everything. It's like a brand new kitchen! Most of the projects I do are between $2000-$4000. There have been a few for less and a few for more, but that's the average range. Even refacing is much more than that!

Here are some photos of a recent kitchen makeover. They left the back splash, but did change the counter tops and modify some of the cabinets.

After painting and glazing

After painting and glazing

Before Paint

Before paint

A simple paint and glaze technique, but such a dramatic change! Of course, you can achieve any color or finish you desire. And yes, we can paint over the white melamine/laminate cabinets. I have done many, with great success. If you'd like to see more examples of painted cabinets check out my website http://www.paintingthetown.us/cabinets_furniture.shtml. Here's another site with lots of great before and after cabinet shots. http://www.r2rfaux.com/faux%20wood.htm

Animal Print Silver and Gold Leafed Side Table

You may remember the small turquoise table I did a little while back http://savardstudios.blogspot.com/2012/04/vintage-turquoise-console-and-side.html. I decided to be a bit crazy with it's mate (although now they don't go together at all!). Such a simple, classic mission style table.

..until I finished with it! Now it's a truly, unique, one of a kind (ooak) side table.

Parts of it are silver leafed, parts are gold leafed. The top was transformed with a zebra print stencil. The legs and drawer were accented with leopard print. The entire table was glazed with a warm brown glaze. Once dry, I polyurethaned the table for durablity, two coats on the top. I used an old cabinet knob and upcycled it by priming, painting, silver leafing, glazing, sealing, then finished it off with black diamond Swarovski cystals. Talk about a blinged out table!! Do you think I'm crazy?! I would love to hear your opinions on my furniture transformations.
Here are the step by step instructions for this table. First I sanded the table and wiped it down. I base coated it with a chocolate brown, furniture grade priming base coat. Color here is not terribly important since I'm covering it with gold and silver leafing. A little color peaks through here and there, but not much. It's classic to do a red base an let a little more color crack through. Here's how the leafing size looks going on. It's milky white but dries clear and sticky.
I did the silver areas first. Once they were leafed, I came back and did the gold areas of the table. After all the leafing was complete, I added the zebra stencil to the top only. 

I used a black glaze for this step because I didn't want it to be solid black. A little more sheer suites my taste better.

Next, I added the leopard stencil to the gold legs and gold drawer face. I think I've mentioned before, I actually hand cut this leopard stencil, many years ago using an exacto knife. I really need to get a new one. There are many places online that will custom make stencils for you. I must do that soon.

Once the stencil design was complete and dry, I glazed the entire table with a warm umber glaze. Love the way this gives the foil a slightly tarnished looked with years of aged beauty and dimension. (Wish I could rub it on me for aged beauty :) ) Since I used oil for this, I let it dry several days before I varnished with an oil satin varnish. The finishing touch on this piece was the upcycled cabinet knob in silver leaf and black diamond Swarovski crystals!

So once again, here's the finished piece.



It's heading over to the Dilworth Blacklion this week. It will be in Booth 409 Eeeklectic Town, www.eeeklectictown.com.  It's already listed on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/savardstudios. Shipping on this piece is included. Here's a sneek preview of another clockface table already listed and heading to my booth this week as well. It will be in one of my upcoming blogs!

Formal Room Transformations - Final Product

Our team has worked hard this week to transform the three rooms from Mondays blog. I'm sure you've been anxiously awaiting the final pictures. All three ceiling are dramatically different, but flow very well from room to room. The dining room ceiling is fantastic! A warm silver metallic blend with a chocolate glaze. Very elegant!

And the green on the walls is the perfect complement. The drapes aren't in yet, but will really pull the chair fabric and wall and ceiling colors all together. They are a black silk with scrolling leafy vines in taupe, red and green embroidery.

The foyer ceiling carrys the dining wall color along with the bronze from the study and the study drape fabric design. The green metallic plaster gives a beautiful silky shimmer inside the coffering. For the scroll design, I enlarged this picture of the study drapes to print on 4 sheets of paper. I taped them together and taped carbon paper to the back. I centered and traced the design into each of the foyer ceiling panels. Then using a chocolate glaze and a blend of bronze and gold, handpainted the design.

We also painted and glazed the wood trim to blend with the wood front door. Much more dramatic than the flat white before. The final product!

And finally, the study ceiling is a perfect blend of the chocolate, gold and champage. We used the same brown base color on the walls and ceiling. In the tray, we trowelled on three wax colors in champagne, gold and chocolate bronze. This was finished with a chocolate glaze as well. The medallion was painted with bronze metallic and lightly dry brushed with a metallic gold.

With the new uplighting, these ceilings will be conversational, showstoppers. Another happy client! For more great visual ideas, check out my website at www.paintingthetown.us.

Formal Room Transformations

Our challenge this week is transforming the walls, ceiling and some trim in the formal dining room, study/home office and entry foyer. It's a stunning house in a beautiful neighborhood, south of Charlotte, NC. We have some artwork and window treatment fabrics that have guided our color selection.

Here is the before shot of the dining room ceiling. Just a big boring rectangle.

Our homeowners have choosen a beautiful sage green for the walls Benjamin Moore color 2142-40. To add some drama to the space, they have choosen a beautiful warm silver metallic for the ceiling with a warm chocolate glaze. The picture to the left is a sample of we plan to do.



For the study, we wanted some warmth and depth. The beautiful trey ceiling barely noticable as is.

We chose a chocolate brown (Benjamin Moore color HC-73) for the walls and soffit. For the trey ceiling, we chose a multi color trowellable metallic wax finish with a glaze.

The foyer walls we are leaving for another time to flow into the rest of the house. But the ceiling is going to be fantastic! It's pretty unnoticable now. It's a barrel coffered ceiling. But all one color and light.

We are going to paint and glaze the barrel trim to look like wood. Inside the wood coffers, we will use a sage green similar to the dining room wall color. But it's a spectacular green metallic plaster! This sample does not do the finish justice (or maybe it's my phototgraphy skills or lack of?).

This is a trowelled finish and there are numerous metallic plasters out there. Someday soon, when I have enough followers asking questions, I will reveal my sources. This sample shows a beautiful stencil done in glassbeads. We didn't want the raised texture of the glass beads, so we will be using a sheer bronze paint. Once the plaster is complete, I have a custom design we will hand paint in the center of each panel. The design has been pulled from the pattern in the study window treatment. This will keep us busy this week. (Please send massage therapy gift certificates if you are feeling generous.) I hate to leave you hanging, but we must finish before I can show the final product. If you need some immediate visual drama, check out my decorative painting website at www.paintingthetown.us. Otherwise, please check back on Friday to see the finished room transformations.  See after pictures here http://savardstudios.blogspot.com/2012/01/formal-room-transformations-final.html.